Observation
by nikkinor
Summary: KateGibbs. Deep blue critically inspects the burgundy that disfigures a beautiful mouth. First in Strawberry Wine series.


Title: Observation.

Rating: T

Paring: Kate/Gibbs

Series: Strawberry Wine (1?)

Summary: "The wind picks up again and he watches as her hair whips around her face. He had noticed the blood on her lip when he had seen her come out of the house, but he can now see the dried crimson clearly clumped and scabbed against soft peach and pink flesh. Deep blue critically inspects the burgundy that disfigures a beautiful mouth."

Disclaimer: NCIS doesn't belong to me, and it never will.

Spoilers: Reveille, Bete Noire, Yankee White, and Sub Rosa.

A/N: This is first in my new Kate/Gibbs series. The series starts with a missing scene from Reveille (this story) and will end right before See No Evil; it's all about the summer between Season 1 and 2 that we don't know what happened during. I'm taking on a huge project with this series, mostly from how many stories it will have (about 10). Observation is angrier than any of my previous stories, and I've been getting use to a slightly different style of writing that fits me a lot better lately, so this one has a feeling slightly unlike my other stuff. Big huge thank you to Dreamer20715 for beta-ing this one.

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_And know that I don't hate you and know that I don't wanna fight you, and know I'll always love you, but right I just don't like you. (Which to Bury, Us or the Hatchet - Relient K)_

He doesn't move; his hands are constricted into tight fists as they hang tensely at his side; his heels are slowly digging into the rough dirt and dust beneath him; his chest only rises and falls when he breathes and that's only on occasion. He doesn't smile when he sees her; he's frowning in the all too normal way he does, glaring either at her or the brightness of the sun. Select pieces of thick gray hair are being blown by the wind, causing the silver in it to almost sparkle with the daylight. He doesn't talk; he isn't yelling and barking orders to the people around, he isn't telling her what to do and what she should have done, no words are spoken and it's even worse then if he were screaming at her about her failures.

He just waits as she walks out of the farmhouse escorted by an FBI agent. She doesn't need to be walked out; doesn't need a big tough man to make sure she gets across the field safely. She doesn't need Gibbs to come and rescue her either; if he wanted to save her he should have busted the door down and shot the men that took her. He should have found her before she had to watch a woman die in front of her at the hands of her captor.

Except he was on his own little protection detail now. He'd boss her around like the subordinate she was; he'd make her get her lip checked by a doctor, take her home and force her to eat what he told her to, then he'd force her to take a few weeks leave that she didn't want but needed more than anything. He hates psychologists and she knows it, so she'll take the time to smite him and go see one. If asked about it she'll tell everyone it's cause she's a rebel and she wants to do something he finds unnecessary, but she'll really go because she can't stop seeing _his _dark brown eyes when she closes her own.

They finish the path to him and she stands right inside the shadow of a tree that's cast out over the dirt road. The Agent hands her over and starts the walk back to his buddies in the farmhouse, leaving the two of them alone. They're just close enough that he could touch her, yet they're too far apart from each other to even think about it. Neither of them moves and neither feels like they have to.

The wind picks up again and he watches as her hair whips around her face. He had noticed the blood on her lip when he had seen her come out of the house, but he can now see the dried crimson clearly clumped and scabbed against soft peach and pink flesh. Deep blue critically inspects the burgundy that disfigures a beautiful mouth. Her eyes look hateful and aggrieved. Normally cheerful and pleasant features are turned cold and heartless towards him. He matches her posture and attitude, unemotional on the outside but begging to hold her and make her feel all right on the inside. Awkward silence takes its residence between them; cruel staring makes its presence known between the two Agents that don't want to admit they're both terrified.

One is frail in the other's eyes and the other failed in his own.

He shifts one of his feet and slowly turns around and starts the walk back to his truck. He doesn't have to look behind him to know she'll follow, they know when to lead and when to follow each other. After more then a year of working side-by-side, partners know what the other expects when it comes to the job, and right now this is still the job. He wants to look back and make sure she's there, but he's not about to make her even more annoyed with him by not giving her the credit she deserves when it comes to their team. No matter how much he wants to protect her, he still has to give her the respect she craves; sometimes he has to trust her to be strong and let her rely on her own instincts.

Their feet kick up clouds of dust as they walk along the well-beaten path; one behind the other, one under the command of the other, but equal on every other level of their field. She is just as strong as he is, she can kill in an instant and break every bone in your body even quicker; but she can break a heart faster then either one.

Especially when it comes to his.

He would protect her to the best of his ability for the next few days. She might resent him and he knows she'll only push him away for telling her she isn't tough enough, but he needs her to be farther away and she doesn't need him any closer. It's the best thing for them now. Her emotions are making her fragile and his emotions for her alone are making him just as delicate.

Except thinking Caitlin Todd needed to be protected was like thinking he himself didn't need coffee. She didn't need him, but he wanted to hold on to the idea that she did; cause _he_ needed her. He could go on without her, but his life and his job would never be as good as it is and can be with her.

"Do you know what his name is?" She's quiet with her question and the bitterness that she wants to add to her words is held back. "Is it Haswari?"

He looks to her for a moment and sees the pure wanting to know in her eyes. Part of him doesn't want her to know, he wants her to know that her captor is a dirt bag and she should hate every bit of him; he doesn't want to give her more information then she absolutely needs. But he knows that she needs to know his name, just like he wanted to call him by his name and have the nerve to call him by the name he despises.

"Ari Haswari." He answers her question flatly, she doesn't hear hatred or a want of revenge in his voice, but she knows it's there and if she were trained like him she would have picked up the minute changes in his tone. "You call him Ari." She doesn't know why she should call him Ari instead of Haswari like the blonde diversion did, but she's definitely not going to get into some long drawn out fight with him about someone else's name.

He feels like it's a sin to say the man's name, to make the sounds of the A, the R and the I come together and create the name of the only thing he views as pure evil. He wants to say her name and make everything beautiful formed into a heavenly name with an angelic figure to match. It reminds him of all the times he has killed someone and has gone to church that Sunday in hopes that it would cancel out the aching he felt deep down inside and the stench of murder he thinks that others can smell.

He walks a little slower for a moment and lets her come up right beside him. He brings his hand right up to the small of her back and lets it hover lightly over the thin white cloth of her shirt, guiding her to his pickup with the invisible force of his fingers. Knowing she has any interest in that man in any way gives him the need to guard her and shield her from all the wickedness Ari could bring to her. He'll tell himself later that the only reason his hand came up behind her was for protection, though he won't ever believe it.

She knows full well that his hand is there, but she almost likes the defense he has for her.

They reach his truck and he sees her as a lady for the first time in a very long time and he opens the door for her and tries to close it gently instead of slamming it and letting out the anger he's been bottling up all day. He walks to his own side of the truck and again keeps his anger in check by softly closing the door beside him.

The engine roars to life and he starts to wish he owned a small and quiet bright red sedan with a silent little motor and slick leather seats. It would have been so much easier to settle into the awkward stillness between them on the ride if nothing was interrupting them. It's a lot simpler to fall into a state of unawareness and denial when life isn't growling at you from beneath the hood of your truck and if you have a comfortable chair to settle down in.

He drives the old truck away from this place that she finds to so horrible. The big red farmhouse with white trim and shudders, the cluttered interior with dark wood tables and chairs, and the big cream-colored couch with pretty matching pillows that had hand embroidered red flowers on the front.

She would hate cream couches and pretty flowered pillows for the rest of her life.

The wheels turn over the tan soil and kick up large amounts of dirt. It only makes him want to go faster and get out of here sooner. He pushes the gas harder and speeds past FBI and Secret Service cars and people with jackets labeled 'Federal Agent'. He's going to get her out of this nightmare of a place and take her somewhere she belongs and has some level of refuge in.

"Where are we going?" She finally asks him, the bitterness isn't held back this time and she feels it's her right to know where she's being taken.

He pulls onto a damaged but paved road and forces the car to go even faster than it was before. He would have liked it if she didn't ask him anything right now, but she has a need to know everything. Except now he remembers she's the one who's been held hostage for a major part of the day, and she deserves to know where she's going and not be kidnapped again but by her own boss.

"Ducky's place, I want him to check out your lip." Her lip didn't really seem that bad and he doubted that anything was wrong with it, but he'd feel better if Duck confirmed that everything was fine.

"My lip's fine, I'd rather just go home." Her statement wasn't as firm as she wished it had been, mostly because part of her wanted to see Ducky. It would be nice to talk to him for a little while and be loved and comforted by the man she considered to be her second father. She still didn't want to give into his control; she didn't want to be pushed into whatever he wanted for her.

"I don't care if it's fine, you're still going to get it looked at." He'll hold to what he finds necessary. She'll do what he tells her to do, whether she wants to or not; and he'll tell her to do what he wants her to, whether he likes bossing her around or not. It's not about whether her lip is fine or not, it's about control and asserting himself as The Boss.

"I don't need to see Ducky. Now please just take me home." She trying to keep her voice down, she never believed that yelling was an admirable way to discuss a problem, but she's having a difficult time not blowing up at him. She just wants to go home and cry for a while in the privacy of her own bedroom. She wants this day to be over so she can begin to forget about it tomorrow.

He pushes the gas even harder. He can hear the irritation in the tone of her voice; he can almost feel the annoyance radiating from her. This is not her decision; she'll listen and obey. She'll fight him on the issue and act like she'll never give in, but in the end she's going to give up and do exactly what he says.

"This is not a debate, Agent Todd." It pisses her off when he calls her 'Agent Todd', he uses it when he wants to correct what she's done or wants to put her in her place and remind her that she belongs to him. And right now the last thing she wants to be reminded of is that she belongs to him.

She wants to burn his boat and watch him come home to ashes in his basement.

She turns her entire body and stares right at him with every hateful thought she can think of being forced to come out in her eyes. They can be beautiful, but when she's mad they're a deadly weapon capable of anything. Right now she wants to go home, and she'll give him a dirty look till he takes her there.

"You wanna go home," he slams on the brakes, and if she hadn't been wearing a seat belt she would have gone flying. He punches the automatic unlock button and returns her killing glare. "I'm not stopping you." He knows she won't open that door, knows she wouldn't walk home when it's six miles just to the nearest highway.

'Pick your battles.' She keeps repeating that in her mind, 'pick your battles.' It's all she can do to stop herself from opening that door and walking for miles just so she can go home. She's not going to get herself mad and blow up at him for something she half wants to do. 'Pick your battles.' If she says it enough times she might actually begin to believe it; maybe.

"Fine." She hits her back against the chair hard and crosses her arms over her chest, her own grown up way of throwing a tempter tantrum. She may feel fine with visiting Ducky, but she's not going to act like she's fully giving into him. Losing a battle doesn't mean you'll lose the whole war.

"Glad you see it _my_ way." He puts extra importance on the word 'my'. She's not agreeing with him, she's being made to do what he pleases. It's his way or the highway, literally, and now they're clear on it. He pushes the gas again and the truck jolts with the start.

She looks straight out the front window. It's a good twenty minutes to Ducky's house, and she knows it's going to be one long ride.

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The wheels crunch against the dark black asphalt, the thick rubber tires with a brick pattern imbedded deep into the ring grating on the lose stones and pine needles that had been misplaced along the blacktop. The brakes screech with the strain of being used so quickly as the truck comes to a stop only inches from hitting the white brick wall in front of them.

The pickup rests in a parking spot beside a nice green Mercedes, her own nice green Mercedes to be exact. She wonders how it got back to her apartment parking space, but she knows he did it. She has no idea how he got a key to her car, but no one else would waste their time driving around cars for other people, unless they were paid.

She's sure that he does nice things like this when he knows she'll be pissed at him, just so she can be more pissed for him trying to please her. He's like a boyfriend that buys you a box of chocolate and a dozen roses after you have a fight, that way you forget that you were mad and he feels like he was never in trouble.

She hates it when men do that.

He pulls the key from the ignition and unbuckles his seatbelt. He's not sure if he wants to get out of the truck or not; he's not sure if he wants to annoy her or care for her. If he wanted to make her mad he'd order her to get out of his car then force her to do whatever he wants after that. If he wants to protect her he'd pull her close and hold her till she cried and tell her he'd take her away from this cold and cruel world.

He's always wanted to hold her again.

He settles for something somewhere in between and opens his door, gets out, and closes it again. He walks to her side of the truck and opens the passenger door.

"Get out." His voice is gruff and insensitive; he's tired and wants to deal with this as fast as he can. But she's still throwing a tantrum, not moving or even looking towards him. "You wanted to go home, well here you are."

She turns her head and raises one eyebrow, challenging him to make her do something. She wants to go into her home so bad; but she has to rebel against him, has to make him struggle for what he wants. Part of her just wants to get into a fight abut something, just so she can yell in his face and get a chance to hit him a few times for being so inexpressive.

He leans over her to unbuckle her seatbelt, his large body surrounding hers. He pushes the button in on the belt and his hand lightly brushes over her hip. She hates the contact and moves as far away from him as she can. He pulls his head up and looks her in the eyes, his breath falling roughly against her chest.

His face comes close to hers, their noses almost touching. "Get out of my truck."

He pulls away from the door and gives her room to exit his vehicle without himself being in the way. She takes her chance and steps out of the truck, quickly making her way to the comfort of her home and leaving him to catch up behind her.

He runs in front of her and comes to the door right as she gets her keys out. He stays ahead of her, forcing her to stand behind him while he fishes in his pocket for who knows what. She wants to get to her door and unlock it so she can try to shut the door in his face, laugh, and take a nice long bath; not wait around while he attempts to find something in his jacket. He pulls a shiny silver colored key from his coat pocket, not giving it a second thought as he opens her door and walks into her apartment.

He has a key to her apartment.

That's all she can think about, _He has a key to her apartment_. She barely had one key to her apartment and he seemed to have a nice polished little key kept with him 'just in case.' Somehow having a key to her car was one thing, but knowing he could freely enter her personal area with the turn of a key she hadn't given him is something entirely different. And she'd yell at him about it right now, but he's walking through her house like he owns it; spreading dirt and grass all over her clean and spotless flooring.

She marches in after him; this is her territory and he isn't about to take it over, especially without a fight. "Would you take off your da…" She stops dead right in the middle of her cursing. He's stomping down the small hallway to her bedroom, making his way into the center of her private life.

She doesn't care how many fantasies she's had that started just like this and how wonderfully they had all ended; this isn't some passionate dream her mind fabricated on a rainy day. No man can go trampling around her home and think that somehow he can go walking right into her bedroom. She'd kill him right where he stood before she'd let him go into her bedroom without permission.

She takes long hard strides and follows his path down the short hallway to her room; little tiny heals making big powerful pounds against the thick burgundy carpet. She's going to take his body and show him exactly what she learned in the Secret Service; she'll slam his rough and tough chest into the wall as fast and as hard as she can then break his arm for the fun of it.

She'll make him understand what happens when you push Caitlin Todd too far.

"What makes you think that you can go walking through my house and just…" She stops when she sees him rifling in her dresser drawers. He's digging through her shirts and her underwear, picking out the pieces he likes as if he did this kind of thing every day.

She's going to choke him with her bare hands. She's been violated enough today by that horrible man she despises even more than Gibbs right now, she's been treated badly enough for today and he's pushing her too far.

He shoves the clothes at her before she has a chance to use every ghastly word she knows to tell him exactly how she feels right now.

"Change."

He walks out and shuts the door behind him harder then he should have. She's more angered that she didn't get to curse him out then the fact that he had gone through her clothes. She wanted to fight him and hit him for being a jerk, not be shut out and given privacy for the first time all day.

She shouts out the name he seems to have grown accustomed to, occasionally referring to it as what the second B in his names stands for. This is the first time she's ever truly meant it, the only time she yells it out in pure hatred instead of in a teasing and slightly mad way. It's the first, and some part of her wants it to be the only, time she's ever believed he deserved the name more than anything.

She screams it one more time, adding more emotion and power to her voice. He at least deserves it twice; she thinks it would make up for all of her pain if she whispered it to him over and over for days, meaning it more and more each time. He should be lucky that she hasn't broken his arm or permanently bruised his face.

She bends down to pick up her bra where it had fallen as he had carelessly pushed the clothes at her. He didn't even trust her to pick out her own undergarments. She sighs and walks to her adjoining bathroom to change.

She's wants to put his head in a wood chipper, a huge one with big shiny blades. But part of her wants to settle down a little, calm down and think about this rationally. But the wood chipper part is overruling wise thought. She might settle for just yelling at him until she turns blue.

She hates him.

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She walks by him, the fresh pair of jeans and clean t-shirt that he picked for her gently clinging to her body. He notices that she smells different, really different. Her work smell is fruity and light, like a sparkling new peach just picked mixed with a newly sliced apple. This smell is rich and thick, vanilla and chocolate with a warm feeling washing over it all.

He wants to know why he's never smelled this before.

He is supposed to know everything about her. He knows her middle name, and her grandmother's middle name. He knows how late she works every night and what time she comes into work every morning. He knows what her favorite dress looks like, he knows her favorite store, and he knows her favorite brand of shoes. He knows her normal smell and what scent perfume she uses to get it. Except she's showing him something new, and he doesn't like that fact that it shocks him.

She walks to her table and stands by the chair where he's set out a plate and a glass of water. She picks up the cup and takes a deep breath; she pulls the glass up to her lips and takes a long sip of the clear liquid. She half wants to actually drink the water, but she tries to down it all at once because she doesn't want to spill water all over her house if she throws the glass at his face.

"Just go home."

He doesn't move from his current position, only keeps trying to find her something decent to eat that doesn't have tofu in it or only consists of green. "Just please, leave me alone."

"I can't do that, Kate." His voice is relatively even; he isn't mad enough right now to yell and scream orders in her face, he just wants her to get what she needs.

"What? You can't just walk out and let me be? You can't give me my personal space?"

"I won't leave you alone. 'Cause I know exactly what you'll do. You won't eat and you won't clean yourself up, you'll sit on your couch and feel sorry for yourself. You'll hate Ari for what he did to you and you'll beat pillows and throw things. You'll try to come into work tomorrow and you'll work yourself all day and come home and pass out." He turns around and looks her in the eye. For the first time all night his words are soft and sincere, "I know you, and I know you can't handle this all by yourself."

"So what, I'm weak now! I can't handle things myself?" Her eyes are on fire with rage, pure fury that he didn't think she could do something on her own. "I've lived all right for the past thirty years of my life, I think that I can live without you just fine."

"I didn't say you needed me! But it doesn't look like you have anybody else."

His comment cuts deeper then she would have thought it would. It makes her remember that her family members are hundreds of miles away, she has no boyfriend and her only friends seem to be at work. He made a powerful and sharp wound right in the middle of her heart.

He watches as she looks down to the floor, bowing in emotional defeat. He didn't mean to make her feel awful about herself, he only wanted her to learn. He walks from the kitchen to the dining room and he comes to stand in front of her.

"Kate, I didn't mean to be…"

"… A jerk?" She cuts his own words and looks up to stare him in the eye.

She can't hold herself together anymore. Her fist hits his chest hard with all of her weight put into that one blow. He stumbles back only a step; he'd tell himself later that it was just because she had caught him off guard, but he'd be lying. He might not want to admit it, but she's just as strong as he is.

She moves closer and hits him again, and again and again. Taking out everything she has on the strongly built body she loves so much. Punch after punch, slap after slap, and every nail that beats on cloth covered skin; he takes it all and slowly closes his arms around her for her own comfort.

He can't help but remember a cramped silver bathroom on a big jet plane.

She stops hitting him, her hands resting still against his chest. Her head slowly falls to his shoulder and she closes her eyes in partial peace. Half of her is just so tired that she wants to give up everything. She lifts her head and he takes his hands off of her shoulders and back.

"I screwed up." Her voice is weak and he can hear the misery in her tone. She's not mad anymore, she's exhausted and in distress from the days events. She looks so brittle to him as she brings her arms around her chest and hugs herself, a little bit for the warmth and little more for the comfort.

If they were back in the truck he would have reassured her of that fact, but something is different now and his whole attitude towards her has changed. "You didn't screw up." Now he feels the need to hold her again and tell her everything is all right, a part of him wants to be near her and soothe her.

"I'd only be lying to myself if I thought that. I shouldn't have gone after him, I fell for his trap and didn't realize it till it was too late." She brings her head back up and looks him in the eyes, holding his gaze at all cost as if he somehow held the secret to the world. She wanted to hear from him what he had been telling her all day, that she was a terrible Agent and she needed to learn. Except it wasn't about seeing what she did wrong anymore, she wanted to break down and she knew her big mean old boss would put her down and make it so she could finally cry.

But he's not her big mean old boss right now; he's gotten to close too push her away now.

"If you didn't fall into his trap there would have been seven armed Hamas trained terrorists out in the middle of a field trying to shoot at Marine One with test missiles. And if they had guessed which one the president was in, they would have ended up killing him and the Israeli prime minister. You did exactly what you were trained to do…protect."

He pauses, then runs his hand through his hair and down his weary and wrinkled face. He's getting too old for this.

"You didn't screw up, Kate…" He lowers his voice to nearly a whisper, softening his look towards her and offering the only comfort he could give. He reaches out slowly and brings his right hand up to her face, letting his thumb calmly hover over her lip. "He screwed up and he should be blamed." He cautiously touches the scabbed red over her injured lip, holding his thumb in place when she doesn't move. "He hurt you."

Her head sways a little as she moves away from the contact then back into it deeper. She pulls one of her arms away from her torso and reaches out to his right shoulder, tenderly running her callused fingers over the area she remembers him being shot at. "He hurt you too." It's faint and it's barely audible, but she wants him to know that she wasn't the only one who hurt because of Ari.

"He hurt you a lot worse, and it wasn't just flesh and blood." He moves his hand and strokes his thumb over her eyebrow as she moves to get closer to his touch. She had been trying to hide what Ari had done to her; she had put up her best wall when it came to the subject of the man she loved to hate. She loathed it when he could read her so very well.

"He hurt you the same way, don't pretend like he didn't." Her anger is starting to come back; she wanted to be wrong, not weak. He was telling her that she was feeble and the only one of them that could admit to being hurt on an emotional level.

"I didn't say that." She's making things worse, blaming everything on him. He almost pulls his hand away from her face, but he needs the contact.

"Then stop acting like it." She pulls from his touch and takes a few steps back from him. "Why do I have to be the one who was hurt by him? Why can't you just admit that he did something you too? Why don't you just talk about it instead of hiding it all?" She's almost yelling at him, her voice getting just a little louder with each word.

"Same reasons you don't wanna talk about it!" She looks away from his face and stares at the wall beside her. "You don't want to remember every time he touched you or told you what to do, and I don't want to remember a single word he said and what he did to _my_ team."

She puts her hand on her hip and keeps her gaze against the wall. She knows he's right. She doesn't want to talk about or even remember what Ari did to her. She had been irritated that he hadn't been willing to talk about what had happened the night in Autopsy, but she had been doing to same thing to him.

"I hate him. I hate every little thing he's ever done." Her voice is relatively even; she's not crying, not sad, just hateful.

He takes a step closer to her, "I know. I hate him too." He understands the hatred she has for Ari, and he fully understands the need for revenge that he can see in the side of her eye.

She turns her head back to him. "I hate you too." He stops dead as he was about to move just a little closer. He hadn't seen that one coming, but he should have. "I hate that you never show anyone how you feel, I hate that you can be so cold but expect me to open up to you."

She doesn't really care if she's a hypocrite.

"You hate me for being me?" He's not letting it show that he's blown away with her newly found voice to tell him what she doesn't like about him.

She challenges him with her eyes and copies the stare she's so used to seeing on his face. "Very much so."

"You think that I can't show emotion?" If she says yes he's determined to show her otherwise.

"I think even if you could, you'd do a terrible job at it." Their eyes lock for a moment, part of him as always wanted to do this.

His lips come down hard, pushing and sucking on the sore that stains perfectly tender skin. She lets a tiny cry escape at the sting his lips bring to her injured skin, but the pleasure of the kissing quickly exceeds the small ache.

His tongue wastes no time as it begs access to the soft and delicious mouth of his angel. She slowly and cautiously separates her lips for him; she wants all that he's willing to give, but she's still unsure about how this will all turn out.

Except it all gets out of control only moments after it began. Fingers are running through hair, hands are touching everything and everywhere, and their lips seem to find every single little sensitive spot in the other's mouth and face. She's moaning and he's groaning, both so caught up in the other that all they know is each other's touch.

Tonight is going to be about them; not Ari, not NCIS, not anyone else in the world, only Katie and Jethro.

He spins her around faster then he originally intended and he pushes her flush against the wall separating the foyer from the dinning room, the pure pleasure of the moment is quickly taking him over. She hits the wall hard and it almost knocks the wind out of her.

Two begging mouths sucking on each other, two sets of luscious lips sliding along skin and teeth, and two tongues mixed between two people caught up in the other.

They move beautifully together.

This isn't a kiss, this is fury and rage and zeal all packed into one sensationally passionate force of control. It's lustful craving pressed up against a dark terracotta colored wall. They were finally letting out all of the heat that had been boiling up between them since they met, and it felt good.

They hit a small table beside them and the vase on top knocks over falls to the floor and shatters into hundreds of little pieces. He hears the shattering of the container and notices the bits scattered across the floor, but doesn't give it a second thought as she pleadingly pulls his body closer to hers. She doesn't even realize the vase was knocked over, she's too caught up in his lips, the way his hands are rubbing her hips and the feeling of his body pushed fully up against hers.

She couldn't pull herself away from him if her life depended on it. They were kissing like they depended on the other's mouth to survive; pulling the other close like they were the only warmth left during a freezing cold night.

He wants more and she wants everything.

He goes to kiss her neck and his lips are heatedly pulling at her skin, mouth biting and soothing young flesh. She lets his name escape from her throat, quiet and sudden as he bites down on her neck again. He loves the way it sounds coming from her, and starts to think about how nice it would be to hear her say his name every day, filled with emotion and fondness.

He wants to hold her like this forever, show her true love that only he can giver her. He wants to show her a world of wonder and beauty in a relationship that she couldn't have possibly ever known. He wants to cook dinner for her and eat under his boat with candles and champagne. He wants to take her on his back porch and dance with her all night under the moon and the stars.

He kisses her again and again like he never wants to give her away. She kisses back again and again like she never wants him to leave. He moves his lips to her neck again and slowly works his way down to her shoulder, not leaving one inch of the soft skin untouched. He could do this till the end of time.

But he's taking advantage of her right now, and he knows it. He's taking her when she's weak and hurt and not even close to being herself. It's almost as if he had gotten her drunk himself and then easily talked her into going home with him. He had gotten her intoxicated with every emotion there was, and now he was pulling her into something he should have never even thought about.

She pulls his face back to hers and kisses him with all the passion she knows. But now his gut is telling him to stop her while he can still stop himself. He drags his lips from hers; making it known that this is ending, now.

"Kate, stop."

She has no intention of stopping, he could tell her the house was burning down and she still wouldn't pull herself from him. She brings his mouth back to hers and tries to regain the heated moment they had been in. He just pulls back again, this time stepping back and leaving her against the wall.

"Gibbs, what's wrong?" She asks, breathless from lack of oxygen and angry that he's pushing her away.

He runs his hand through his hair then down his tired and lined and face. This day had been too long already, now he was breaking a small piece of her heart to top it all off. "I can't put you through this, Kate."

"Put me through what?" She's starting to raise her voice; she's getting really mad at him again. Thoughts of wood chippers are coming back to her now.

He focuses on a spot over her head on the wall behind her. He can't use her and he definitely doesn't want to break her heart, and if he doesn't walk out right now he's going to end up doing both. He'd hurt her, and he's not about to do that.

"Gibbs?" She can tell that he's thinking about something, it's deep and complicated and the trained investigator in him is working through every detail of their situation.

He always has to think things through.

He looks to the side and tries to pull his thoughts away from her and her voice; he needs to go before he damages her anymore. He has to let her go now. He doesn't take advantage of women and doing anything but leaving right now would be taking advantage. He might leave her torn into pieces, but he has to; it's better to hurt her now when nothing has happened and not later when he has had the chance to promise her the world.

He looks her straight in the eye and for a second she thinks that he wants to stay. "Eat something, go to bed, and don't come to work tomorrow." He walks as fast as he can without running, quickly making his way out of her apartment and out of her life.

She hears the door open and close with a bang.

She leans up against that dark lonely wall and just closes her eyes for a moment. She had been right; her big mean old boss was the only one that could make her cry.

He stands outside her door and he doesn't move, he's still not sure if he really wants to leave. His chest only rises and falls when he breathes and that's only on occasion.


End file.
